Schansberg: " ... Nose-holders in both parties now have an option which would allow them to sleep better at night."

With the Libertarian candidate's permission, here is Eric Schansberg's unedited response to my post on Sunday, Indiana's 9th district contest: A million miles on a set of retreads? Are you kidding?

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In a word: an eloquent beat-down of Sodrel; "palpable resignation" in choosing Hill; and considerable respect with disagreement on some issues for me.

Thanks for your kind words!

Thoughts on two of the labels you used...

You refer to my "fundamentalist religious orientation". As an aside: is this a good time for a reference to "choice" vs. "was I born that way"? ;-) In any case, I'd be more careful throwing around a label like that.

First, it's not true about me in general terms. Anyone who knows me in terms of my theology and Christian walk would be hard-pressed to make that pejorative stick.

Second, you connect my fundamentalism to my views on abortion. Again, I'd take care with that assertion as well-- if one's views are based on a bizarre view of a sacred text (the Constitution) and decades-old science (on when life begins).

More broadly, and I don't know you well enough to say this about you, but many in your crowd suffer from various forms of fundamentalism with respect to the State, Nature, and so on.

And then there's the term "progressive". You might want to check the Progressive Handbook on this. But I don't think you're allowed to claim the label when you publicly support a candidate who does nothing substantive to get us out of Iraq, says nothing about the 15.3% tax on every dollar earned by the working poor, nothing about the negative rate-of-return on Social Security for African-Americans, and so on. I'll admit that Hill seems quite strong on keeping our kids away from porn and supporting our veterans. But that hardly seems like enough for a "progressive" to actively promote the status quo.

Instead of progressive, I think you mean "pragmatist". Of course, I need voters to be more principled. And with Hill cruising to victory with a 11-15% lead, nose-holders in both parties now have an option which would allow them to sleep better at night.

I'd love to win. That said, assuming a second-tier miracle is not in the offing, reaching 10% is within reach. (We were at 7% in the last poll.) Reaching double-digits would hopefully lead to a national discussion of third-party candidates (including various types of "progressives")-- something all of us, presumably, want to see.

Don't waste your vote this time. Vote Schansberg for Congress on November 4th.

" ... While the local embarrassment is undeniable, Mr. Ward DOES NOT represent New Albany."

I'd rather that my city serve as a snapshot of the zeitgeist for something (anything) positive and enriching, but sometimes we must play the hand we're dealt, and so it goes that for a brief moment, New Albany has the national distinction of being home to a racist antique dealer.

New Albany's famous! We're a disaster area! Instead of Joe the Plumber, we have David the Racist!

Readers are forgiven for imagining that our designation as a disaster area owed to Hurricane Ike, not cultural proclivities.

As time permits today, I'll post links to responses, or in this first instance, the full text. It is from Randy Smith, as posted at Open Salon, where comments for national consumption can be left.

Anyone for a community-wide petition of business owners opposing this human stain?

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Dear America, New Albany rejects racism

Bear with me, America. I am from New Albany, Indiana. So you can find this post, I'll be using search terms within the body of this post. Here goes: racist, new albany, indiana, 9th district, david ward, racists, intolerance, obama, mccain, democrat, democrats, republican, republicans, election, chicago tribune, tribune, brenda ward, main street antiques, dan coffey, 202 east main street, 202 e. main st., antique, antiques, black.

Late, late, late on Saturday night, after returning from seeing Oliver Stone's film "W.," my wife and I sat down to watch Saturday Night Live (SNL). That's the one with Sarah Palin, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg, Oliver Stone, Josh Brolin, and Adele. Amy Poehler was one beautiful mommy, wasn't she.

Seconds before the show ended, I turned to my wife and said, "OK. I'm going to check to see if the world has ended." Sure enough, for those of us in New Albany (we call ourselves New Albanians), it came pretty close.

I booted up, on battery, thinking I'd make short work of checking e-mail and news. Boy, was I wrong.

Having only one trivial e-mail in the previous six hours, I checked in to our city's pre-eminent blog, NA Confidential, whose editors, Roger Baylor and Jeff Gillenwater, can be relied on to articulate the progressive view in New Albany, Indiana.

Jeff, then Roger, made sure their readers would know about the abomination that befouled our city on Saturday when the Chicago Tribune reported first-person electoral opinions from the 9th District of Indiana as part of an analysis of the surprising development that INDIANA, of all places, is a toss-up state for the 2008 presidential race.

Dewey DID narrowly defeat Truman for our electoral votes in 1948, but since then, Indiana's electoral treasure has never been in doubt. LBJ took them in '64, but the GOP has owned them.

Perhaps no longer. A certain gentleman, to wit, David Ward, an "antiques" dealer in New Albany, became this weekend's "Joe the Plumber," but perhaps to the deep consternation of Republicans, including incumbent Gov. Mitch Daniels, congressional candidate Mike Sodrel, and GOP standard-bearers John McCain and Sarah Heath Palin.

Indiana? Source of the "October surprise?"

It just may be.

As background, let me relate to you that the weekend conversation here has been whether Democrats here do in fact support the presidential candidate, Barack Obama. I, myself a Hillary Clinton supporter, wagered on Roger and Jeff's blog that even our city council, consisting of 8 Democrats and 1 Republican, might not be able to muster a majority of votes for Obama-Biden.

The local Democratic Party chairman chided "us" as dilettantes sitting on our asses and blogging instead of pounding the pavement and making cold calls on behalf of our preferred candidate, and only obliquely addressed our dissatisfaction with the official Democratic Party establishment's suspect and unenthusiastic support for Obama's campaign for change.

D'oh! Who knew the Chicago Tribune was working the case?

Deep in this story, two New Albany dopes were captured for posterity. Slack-jawed mouthbreather Kenneth Hodge (me likee me guns) gets a pass. But thousands of us in New Albany will rise to reject the beliefs of a certain David Ward, identified as someone "who runs an antique shop with his wife in New Albany."

The business address and phone number of Mr. Ward's business is included here. May I suggest you consult 411.com and enter "David Ward" and "47150" should you wish to contact the man.

The business in question was spotlighted in our local newspaper a year ago after Mr. Ward and his wife, Brenda, took over management from New Albany's senior Democratic city council member, Daniel J. (Dan) Coffey. Here's the story from October of 2007, titled Q&A: Brenda Ward has a love for antiques.

I do not know Brenda, nor David. David's antiquated views are not ours. But I do know New Albany.

Mr. Roget doesn't have enough synonyms for "reject" to adequately express our disdain, disgust, repulsion, denial, or embarrassment at this portrayal of our city's mindset.

For the record, here's the offending (and offensive) passage from Saturday's Chicago Tribune:

For others, like David Ward, who runs an antique shop with his wife in New Albany, the issue is race. Ward, a registered Democrat, said he will vote for McCain "mainly because he's not black."

New Albanians, in shock right now, will be back on Sunday with more articulate thoughts. I'll link to local comment and respond as I can during the day.

In the interim, please know that New Albanians, and this practicioner of New Albanism (as for me and my house...) stand ready to persuade you that while the local embarrassment is undeniable, Mr. Ward DOES NOT represent New Albany.

New Albany's famous! We're a disaster area! Instead of Joe the Plumber, we have David the Racist!

Bluegill posted the following as a comment on Saturday evening. It deserves marquee status, especially given yesterday's discussion.

While it's always depressing and embarrassing to live among cultural conservatives, it takes the proverbial cake for one of them to confide racism to a reporter from an internationally recognized newspaper. That's honesty ... and abject stupidity.

I wonder if Ward voted for Dan Coffey?

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As much as I hate to post it-- from today's Chicago Tribune, which refers to us as "the culturally conservative south":

Cultural issues are powerful forces in southern counties currently represented by two Democrats in Congress, Brad Ellsworth and Baron Hill, each elected in 2006. For Kenneth Hodge, a muffler shop employee who lives in New Albany, the most important issue is gun ownership. He'll be voting for McCain because "I like my guns" and he's afraid Obama will take them away.

For others, like David Ward, who runs an antique shop with his wife in New Albany, the issue is race. Ward, a registered Democrat, said he will vote for McCain "mainly because he's not black."

GOP stronghold Indiana a surprise toss-up

Indiana's 9th district contest: A million miles on a set of retreads? Are you kidding?

If you happen to be reading from afar, be aware that my blog and I both reside in Indiana’s 9th congressional district, which for much of my life – 34 years, to be exact – was represented by Lee Hamilton, a Democrat.

When Hamilton retired in 1999, he was succeeded by Baron Hill, also a Democrat, but one that cannot be identified with the party’s liberal wing.

(Excuse me if I err in taking for granted that such a beast even exists in the American two-party, non-genuine-choice system.)

Hill served two congressional terms before being defeated by Republican Mike Sodrel in 2004. Sodrel, a trucking magnate, actually lives just outside New Albany, a fact that is largely meaningless, but one that I diligently report in an effort to find something favorable to write about the mercifully short-lived political phenomenon of Sodrelism.

In truth, when it comes to Sodrel’s unapologetically Falangist political orientation, there is very little positive to say. During his two years on Capitol Hill, Sodrel’s fawning fealty to the miserably failed George W. Bush bordered on the pathological. With no visible prompting, he could be counted on to prostrate himself before King George in what amounted to an unappetizing display of groveling reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire at its zenith.

Sodrel’s running yet again, and I see that the man dubbed by his foes as “Millionaire Mike” is selling himself (no puns, please) as “Million Mile” Mike in his recent television ads.

Considering Sodrel’s numerous previous bids for the seat, why not “Million Yawn Mike”?

I prefer “A Million Votes with the Discredited Bush Mike.”

Or, to recognize the storybook rags to riches to sags tale: “Million Mile Farce” to Washington … and back again.

As is the case with John McCain, Sodrel and by far the very worst president in American history – a graveside giggle by Warren G. Harding is permitted at this juncture – have been politically joined at the hip in ways that right-wingers would decry as blatantly pornographic if all involved were San Franciscans wearing leather and chains.

Did Sodrel vote against the interests of W even once during his appropriately shrunken congressional tenure? Perhaps, but the percentage of agreement surely exceeded 95% – and that’s roughly 90% too often.

What I don’t understand is why the GOP is not considering longer-term electoral interests in this race. Not that I want a theocratic Republican to win, but can any of our resident pachyderm apologists explain the tactical wisdom of Sodrel’s latest bid for Congress?

Perhaps Sodrel hasn’t yet pole vaulted past the suggested sell-by date as obviously as McCain has, though he’s rapidly gaining ground in the competition to be chronologically irrelevant. So, is the party just buying time by running a putrefying political retread in a season when the electoral (read: economic) climate probably is not conducive?

But why not let a “next generation” candidate get his or her feet wet this time, then be infinitely better placed to contest the seat in 2010?

Hill should win, and that’s good enough, even if it isn’t as good as it might be. The persistent problem for progressives in this moribund district is that Hill must always lean center-right to remain viable in a constituency that merrily views Attila the Hun as a flaming liberal.

Hill’s name came up in conversation recently, and I was asked, “Do you like him?”

My response: “I like him way more than Sodrel.”

Still, the fact that local Republicans regard Hill as Nancy Pelosi’s illegitimate sibling remains reason enough to reelect him, enthusiastically or otherwise.

I might add that I genuinely respect Eric Schansberg, the soon-to-be perennial 9th district Libertarian candidate, and find his views far more palatable than Sodrel’s. As a third party nominee, the educator and economist has the luxury to gleefully dissect the positions of both major party bidders.

Unfortunately, Schansberg’s fundamentalist religious orientation (in particular, a strident anti-abortion stance) effectively dissuades me from supporting him even if his presence in the race immeasurably enlivens the economic debate.

His isn’t so much an endorsement as a preference expressed with palpable resignation, and so I’ll be voting for Hill. I’ll continue to read Schansberg’s blogs and wish him further success in academia. Sodrel should retire from politics and focus on the family business, and the GOP should find someone younger and more capable.

Gee, thanks for asking.

On reading political yard sign tea leaves.

While it is profoundly disturbing to contemplate local election year politics solely as the dully repetitious practice of efficiently distributing campaign yard signs, such a low common denominator is as much a fact of New Albanian life as television, light beer and non-ironic disingenuousness.

That said, there are three campaign yard signs on my property. It may surprise most of the city’s 37,000 residents to learn that two of them are for Republican candidates: John Click (coroner) and Larry Summers (county council at-large). As an added note, more Republican than Democratic prospective office holders came to Fringe Fest last weekend, and their presence did not go unnoticed.

Longtime readers will recall that while I can generally be depended upon to vote against Republicans at the state and national levels, primarily owing to their lockstep tendencies to abjectly fail my personal litmus test of unequivocal support for church-state separation (contrary to uniformed opinion, atheists have consciences, too), up-close local political races are another matter.

Verily, local Democrats cannot always depend on my support even if I generally vote for them most of the time. The reason? They simply aren’t always ideologically Democratic enough to suit me, which is to say that from my perspective, they aren’t sufficiently strident in liberal, progressive terms. As an example, Steve Price fancies himself Democratic, which makes about as much sense as George Clooney playing the role of Marilyn Monroe.

Anyway, if you’re wondering what the third yard sign says, it’s Obama/Biden. The first one placed out front of the house survived Hurricane Ike and a half dozen botched vandalisms until it finally was stolen outright during Harvest Homecoming. The second one probably won’t make it past the publication of this column, but the detestable proclivities of random blithering idiots in the populace aren’t the reason for my bringing it up.

Rather, it is my yard sign’s relative isolation in the context of a city that remains heavily Democratic in terms of voting preference. Of course, Floyd County beyond the city limits is another matter, having long since been thrust into a whole different demographic by the twin influences of wealth and superstition.

Is it just me, or have you noticed that in New Albany, clusters of yard signs touting the same familiar local Democratic faces are seldom accompanied by Obama/Biden signs?

Rather, as is the case in my yard, Obama/Biden campaign signs are most often seen standing alone, and absent other Democratic placards.

At two prime spots on Spring Street, virtually every perennial Democratic candidate has a sign grouped in a cluster like Conestoga wagons circled on the prairie, except the one that points to the ultimate party leadership position residing at the very top of the national ticket.

What does this mean?

This phenomenon may be coincidental, and my mention of it is not the result of a scientific sampling. But I cannot help concluding that at least some local Democrats are completely incapable of elucidating the platform planks that differentiate them from Republicans.

Label me unimpressed by selective memory of this stripe, and even if the passion’s missing, I wouldn’t mind seeing a few better actors hereabouts.

Of course, being on the wrong side of history isn’t a lamentable coordinate restricted to New Albany, but a clueless egregiousness is unbecoming when it’s your own neighborhood.

I’m proud to say that at-large councilman John Gonder isn’t among the prevaricators, and in spite of our differences over workplace smoking, his advocacy of Barack Obama is to be commended. Faith, Love and …

Indiana in play? Wow. Who’d have thunk it?

Unfortunately, many hidebound local Democrats can’t think.

Kathleen Parker on Chris Buckley, National Review: "(Republicans) do not ... deserve to win this time, and someone had to remind them why."

NAC has been following this story since Christopher Buckley's on-line Obama endorsement first broke.

William F. Buckley was articulate and intelligent, whereas contemporary conservatism boasts a crass anti-intellectualism that lately has become viral.

Surveying the scurrilous faith-based wreckage of the conservative movement, which today embraces the "we the people don't need no education" line of non-thought and would correspondingly not hesitate to ostracize Buckley elder in the same way that it has impugned the younger, as well as previously savaging Kathleen Parker for her apostasy in denouncing Sarah Palin, LEO’s Stephen George said it best earlier this week:

Let’s call this line of thinking the terrorism of the idiocracy. It did not start with John McCain or Sarah Palin — although they have found wild profit in it — and it surely will not end there. In actuality, it begins in the vacuum created by a general ignorance of the world around you, the pride you take in that ignorance, and the vulnerability that leaves you with. When some addled shit-peddler like McCain or Palin fills the vacuum with radical lies, these barely literate masses take a crazed posture, and the worst of their own fear and loathing manifests itself in heinous, hilarious ways.

Like the woman who still insists, despite McCain himself telling her otherwise, that Obama is an “Arab” and, by implication, “Arab” is bad. Naturally, McCain scored media points by calling off that particular dog, but he never said anything like, “Hey nut-job, Arab is not a bad word.” In fact, by avoiding saying that but nonetheless acknowledging she’d erred, he subtly reinforced her “epithet.”

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WFB Would Be Proud, by Kathleen Parker (Friday, October 17, 2008)

Christopher Buckley's endorsement of Barack Obama -- followed by his abrupt departure from the back page of the magazine his father founded, National Review -- has caused a ripple of contempt from the conservative right.

Nay, make that a tsunami of hostility. An avalanche of venom. A cataclysm of ... well, you get the idea. People are mad. Good riddance, they say, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Let us proceed, gingerly.

I am not a passive bystander to these events. Buckley is a friend, as are other members of his family, especially Uncle Reid, with whom I have worked for several years. National Review is home to many friends, and its online editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez, kindly subscribes to my column. Like Buckley, I have enjoyed a decent fragging for suggesting that Sarah Palin excuse herself from the Republican ticket.

What gives here?

What does it mean that the right cannot politely entertain dissenting opinions within its ranks? What, if anything, does it portend that Buckley The Younger has bolted from the right, even resigning (with enthusiastic editorial approval) from the family flagship?

Some have opined, ridiculously, that Buckley -- son of the famous William F. Buckley (WFB) -- was merely seeking attention. Christo, as family and friends call him, has written more than a dozen acclaimed books, one of which, "Thank You for Smoking," became a movie. In 2004, he won the Thurber Prize for American Humor for "No Way to Treat a First Lady." For 18 years he edited a magazine, Forbes Life, and otherwise seems to be doing all right.

Other critics have surmised that Buckley's "betrayal" was a publicity stunt for his newest novel, "Supreme Courtship" (which I reviewed for National Review). When you're as funny and write as well as Buckley, you don't have to resort to stunts. You are the stunt.

So why did he do it?

Because he had to. It's in his genes.

True believers of whatever stripe too often forget that the men and women who create movements are first and foremost radicals. Great movements are not the result of relaxing afternoons musing along the Seine but emerge from flames of passion ignited by injustice.

When WFB created the modern conservative movement, he didn't call a neighborhood meeting and whisper, "Come along now." He stood athwart history and yelled, "Stop!"

His son, though he customarily takes the more circuitous route to the revolution via satire, is now merely answering WFB's original call to political activism. Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, the younger Buckley said: "I haven't left the Republican Party. It left me."

In 1955, when WFB announced his new magazine and explained the reasons for it, he described conservatives as "non-licensed nonconformists":

"Radical conservatives in this country have an interesting time of it, for when they are not being suppressed or mutilated by Liberals, they are being ignored or humiliated by a great many of those of the well-fed Right, whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity."

Fast-forward half a century, and the old is the new.

Radical conservatives are still having an interesting time of it, though these days they are being mutilated by fellow "conservatives." The well-fed Right now cultivates ignorance as a political strategy and humiliates itself when its brightest sons seek sanctuary in the solitude of personal honor.

The truth few wish to utter is that the GOP has abandoned many conservatives, who mostly nurse their angst in private. Those chickens we keep hearing about have indeed come home to roost. Years of pandering to the extreme wing -- the "kooks" the senior Buckley tried to separate from the right -- have created a party no longer attentive to its principles.

Instead, as Christopher Buckley pointed out in a blog post on thedailybeast.com explaining his departure from National Review, eight years of "conservatism" have brought us "a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance."
Republicans are not short on brainpower -- or pride -- but they have strayed off course. They do not, in fact, deserve to win this time, and someone had to remind them why.

Christopher Buckley, ever the swashbuckling heir to his father's defiant spirit, walked the plank so that the sinking mother ship might right itself.

No doubt his seafaring father is cheering from heaven: "Ahoy there, Christo! Well done, my son."

Randy, Doug, & Dan!

This report was originally posted by Lloyd Wimp on his "View From the Highway " site.

Last evening’s New Albany Common Council meeting was unique in a number of ways.

For one, Doug England was present from beginning to end. For another, Carl Malysz was nowhere to be found.

Then there was Mr. Randy Smith who rose to the podium to remind the Council of their historic unwillingness to raise taxes & services rates regardless of the need to do so. He also suggested the budget be frozen at 2007 levels and let the chips fall where they may.

To his credit he managed to not be removed from the room although he did get gaveled out of order by President Gahan later in the evening.

And for the second meeting in a row CM Coffey remained calm, cool & collected. Well for the most part anyway. He voice did raise an octave or two when an employee of the New Albany Housing Authority dared to disagree with him about his memory of the origin and distribution of monies within that entity when he was on their board. (circa the1990’s)

The Mayor (that’d be Doug ‘cause Carl weren’t there) came to the podium to inform the Council that the storm cleanup, although expensive, was for all practical purposes done. That was the good news.

The bad news was that your man Mitch (he sure as hell ain’t mine) has yet to declare our fair county/city a disaster area. Further more, there have been no clear indicators of either when or if he will.

Which brings me to a burning question. Where are the Floyd County Executives (i.e. the Commissioners) in this conversation? Oh wait! Floyd County doesn’t have any infrastructure worth selling off to the highest bidder to further pad the State coiffures does it.

But I’m getting off task here. As a result of the untimely storm, the Governors inaction, and the States tardiness in handling our local budget issues we are in fact up the creek without a paddle.

All that being said the Mayor’s position is that he will work within the legal constraints of the budget monies available. If that means cuts in jobs & reduced services to the public, so be it!

He once again reminded all present that we in New Albany have one of the lowest property tax rates in the State. If I heard correctly our rate is $0.80 per $100.00 of assessed value.

Mayor England went on the say that he would balance this budget because he is legally required to and that his administration would work closely with this Council to formulate a 2009 budget that all can agree to. However at the current tax rate and unless someone can wave a magic wand, freezing the 2009 budget at 2007 levels will result in even more reductions in public services. The dollars just aren’t there.

CM Price of course put forward the same ole same ole of parking take home cars, cutting overtime, restricting cell phone use, etc, etc,……….

The remainder of the evening was spent on first readings of various ordinances pertaining to the 2009 budget.

The most telling of which was R-08-43, a Resolution to Reduce 2009 City Budget to offset State Shortfall. This is basically requiring all city departments (except of course Police, Fire, & Safety Services) to trim yet another 10% from the operating costs.

In the case of the aforementioned Safety Services, that cut was a minimum 12 to 15%. A “Good Luck doing that” sigh was felt across the room.

The mayor stated the if necessary we could expect to see Police administration officials on street patrol duty.

Following my 3rd District Councilman’s lead I suggested to the fire chief that he could save thousands if he were to remove the inside dual tire on all of the fire engines and use PVC couplers & radiator hose clamps to repair damaged fire hoses.

Or better yet, let the houses burn completely to the ground thus saving the Building Commission the costs of demolition after the fact. Hauling off a dump truck load of ashes has to be cheaper and quicker than demolishing a half burnt building.

I know, I know, that ain’t funny. But it is about as realistic as a citizenry demanding $3.00 worth of services while only putting .50 cents in the kitty. Cats & rabbits breed fast enough to replenish themselves but I’ve yet to see even pennies, nickles & dimes do so to the scale we are talking about.

At any rate with the exception of A-08-14, which authorized the spending of a federal grant for a new radio system in the Fire Department and R 08-42 which amounted to a 5 year tax abatement for Rite-Way Industries, the other menu items were in one way or another centered around the budget.

There is a Council work session scheduled for Thursday October 23rd @ 6 PM to discuss the budget (again). The Council requested that city department heads attend this workshop to assist in trimming the fat.

As per Kay Garry, the Council has two more meetings in November to get the details hammered out & agreed to. The drop dead date is December 1st.

Happy New Year New Albany!

Time now for Harvest Hopcoming at the Public House.

It's my blog, and I can shamelessly plug whenever I wanna. Our annual hop adoration ritual begins tonight, featuring ales from all over America and a handful from Belgium.

Lupulin Land Harvest Hopcoming omnibus preview: PR, beer descriptions, links and schedule.

In short, mucho hoppy ale at the Public House for the next two or more weeks.

Tribune unveils weekly "Cheers & Jeers."

Here's an idea with merit ... depending on who does the actual writing.

TRIBUNE CHEERS & JEERS: Oct. 15, 2008

Some people just need a little more praise. Some just need to be called to the carpet. In an effort to do both, The Tribune is bringing you a weekly Cheers & Jeers column in this space to do just that.If you have an idea for a cheer or jeer, e-mail it to Tribune Publisher Steve Kozarovich or mail it to 303 Scribner Drive, New Albany, 47150. We can’t guarantee we’ll use it, but cheers to you for trying.So to kick things off, we’ll start with a Harvest Homecoming edition.

Interesting, although the Tribune may find it necessary to place a cap on the number of times that underachieving city council time servers Dan Coffey and Steve Price can be jeered, lest the narrative spll over into the sports page.

For the hell of it, I have one of each, and if readers wishing to chime may do so. You need not restrict yourself to Harvest Homecoming, but I'll lead off with an HH cheer.

CHEERS

... to the Harvest Homecoming committee for making the effort this year to integrate downtown businesses into the festival, and to all the risk-taking, food 'n' drink entrepreneurs downtown whose "unofficial" efforts enlivened Harvest Homecoming this year. There was good food, drink and music all around, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. In years to come, I see an exciting "after hours" component to New Albany's annual fest.

JEERS

... to the New Albany Tribune for its current roster of guest columnists, which in recent months weeks has featured more embarrassment than enrichment, including attempted satire on the topic of sending barefoot and pregnant women back into the kitchen (Olson); a proposal to restrict the voting franchise to the elderly and taxpayers (Kettler); an incoherent plea to unite church and state owing to the inability of secular authorities to combat "evil" (Johnson); and a "thrash the straw man" attack on a New Atheism that doesn't exist.

Taken together, this right-wing drumbeat has been nothing short of a soundtrack for Leni Riefenstahl's documentary films about the Nurnberg Rallies, and encourages the view that Hoosiers in the southern half of the state have barely made it past Reconstruction in their social and political outlooks.

All of which is true ... but must we draw attention to it so often?

Speaking of Major Move(ment)s ...

With the city council pursuing budget cuts and money tight all around, surely it won't be long until New Albany's sewer system returns to its rightful daily place on the front page. Meanwhile, a new book that is destined to become the ideal Christmas gift for members of New Albany's "Potty Police" is reviewed in this week's issue of The Economist.

Adventures in human waste: Lifting the lid, from the Oct. 9, 2008 edition of The Economist.

DEATH, once referred to in euphemisms, if at all, has been reborn as prime-time television drama. Sex and money are now topics for documentaries, even after-dinner conversation. The last taboo, surely, is shit. The byproducts of digestion are so hard to mention—adolescent jokes aside—that symptoms of bowel cancer are often ignored until it is too late.

But as Rose George explains in this fascinating and eloquent book, there is a great deal that needs to be said about excretion that is not remotely funny. Two-fifths of the world’s population has nowhere to defecate except open ground ...

I wonder if Major Moves is paying the difference?

Anyone for a brief church/state diversion? The hearing described below occurred yesterday, but there is no word yet on outcomes, if any. Speaking for myself, if one must pay to tout the physical environment on a license plate, then surely an equal tithe should be made to make a mockery of church-state separation.

From the Indiana Lawyer website, courtesy of M.

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Court of Appeals to hear license plate arguments in Greencastle
Mon. October 13 - 2008 ... IL Staff

The Indiana Court of Appeals travels to Greencastle Oct. 14 to hear arguments in a case involving Indiana’s “In God We Trust” license plates.

Judges Michael Barnes, Terry Crone, and Margret Robb will hear arguments in Mark Studler v. Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles and Ronald Stiver, in his official capacity as Commissioner, No. 49A02-0804-CV-385. Mark Studler filed a suit against the Bureau of Motor Vehicles challenging Indiana Code Section 9-18-24.5-1, which authorizes the specialty “In God We Trust” license plate at no additional charge. He contends offering the plate at no fee violates Article I, Section 23 of the Indiana Constitution. Studler had to pay a $40 administrative fee to get his environmental specialty plate.

Studler is appealing the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the BMV. Arguments begin at 10 a.m. at the Walden Inn and Conference Center on the campus of DePauw University, 2 W. Seminary St., Greencastle.

Buckley departs from The National Review: "The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me."

In the wake of his endorsement of Barack Obama, Christopher Buckley has resigned from The National Review, which was founded by his father, the late William F. Buckley.

Hmm.

So much for "laughing at the hypocrisy of all you left-leaning individuals always touting intellectual honesty, tolerance, and freedom of expression."

Looks like that particular malady is afflicting our friends on the right, too. Imagine that. Here's the Buckley piece in its entirety. Thanks to Bayerfan for the tip.

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Buckley Bows Out of National Review, by Christopher Buckley (The Daily Beast).

I seem to have picked an apt title for my Daily Beast column, or blog, or whatever it’s called: “What Fresh Hell.” My last posting (if that’s what it’s called) in which I endorsed Obama, has brought about a very heaping helping of fresh hell. In fact, I think it could accurately be called a tsunami.

The mail (as we used to call it in pre-cyber times) at the Beast has been running I’d say at about 7-to-1 in favor. This would seem to indicate that you (the Beast reader) are largely pro-Obama.

As for the mail flooding into National Review Online—that’s been running about, oh, 700-to-1 against. In fact, the only thing the Right can’t quite decide is whether I should be boiled in oil or just put up against the wall and shot. Lethal injection would be too painless.

I had gone out of my way in my Beast endorsement to say that I was not doing it in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column, because of the experience of my colleague, the lovely Kathleen Parker. Kathleen had written in NRO that she felt Sarah Palin was an embarrassment. (Hardly an alarmist view.) This brought 12,000 livid emails, among them a real charmer suggesting that Kathleen’s mother ought to have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a dumpster. I didn’t want to put NR in an awkward position.

Since my Obama endorsement, Kathleen and I have become BFFs and now trade incoming hate-mails. No one has yet suggested my dear old Mum should have aborted me, but it’s pretty darned angry out there in Right Wing Land. One editor at National Review—a friend of 30 years—emailed me that he thought my opinions “cretinous.” One thoughtful correspondent, who feels that I have “betrayed”—the b-word has been much used in all this—my father and the conservative movement generally, said he plans to devote the rest of his life to getting people to cancel their subscriptions to National Review. But there was one bright spot: To those who wrote me to demand, “Cancel my subscription,” I was able to quote the title of my father’s last book, a delicious compendium of his NR “Notes and Asides”: Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription.

Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman. One of his closest friends on earth was John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1969, Pup wrote a widely-remarked upon column saying that it was time America had a black president. (I hasten to aver here that I did not endorse Senator Obama because he is black. Surely voting for someone on that basis is as racist as not voting for him for the same reason.)

My point, simply, is that William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much. My father was also unpredictable, which tends to keep things fresh and lively and on-their-feet. He came out for legalization of drugs once he decided that the war on drugs was largely counterproductive. Hardly a conservative position. Finally, and hardly least, he was fun. God, he was fun. He liked to mix it up.

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Thanks, anyway, for the memories, and here’s to happier days and with any luck, a bit less fresh hell.

Related: Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama

A periodic reminder: NA Confidential's mask-free policy on reader comments is explained.

It's time for another brief reminder of our disclosure policy. Thanks to all readers for your support of personal responsibility in the blogosphere.

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Roger (senior editor)

Being a Tribune local guest columnist is so easy, a caveman can do it.

... and did, yesterday.

OLSON: Palin-osis spreads among some liberal women, by Doug Olson, Local Guest Columnist

In which a male "former teacher" (ouch) endeavors to speaks for womankind, while in the process pole vaulting over the thin line that separates satire from mean-spirited bile of the sort that currently is poisoning the presidential campaign.

Here’s a sneering snippet.

Palinosis is a near-fatal, always traumatic malady occurring in epidemic proportions among aging, left-wing “feminazis” (a little Rush Limbaugh lingo here) that long ago bought into the notion that all men were sexist pigs bent only on keeping women ignorant, barefoot and pregnant. In other words, women that are suddenly realizing they've been living a toxic lie for the last 30 years or so.

Presumably only Healthblogger is laughing.

The mystery to me is what the newspaper has to gain from encouraging sexist diatribes, but perhaps it’s just another sad measure of how far the level of discourse in America has fallen ... or how few reasonable local people are willing to aply for the position of local guest columnist.

Photo credit: http://www.gigglesugar.com/152917

“William F. Buckley’s Son Says He Is Pro-Obama.”

Thanks to Bayernfan for pointing to this essay. It deserves full marquee treatment, and is reprinted in its entirety. Photo credit: The Daily Beast.

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Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama, by Christopher Buckley

Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.

Or would they? But let’s get that part out of the way. The only reason my vote would be of any interest to anyone is that my last name happens to be Buckley—a name I inherited. So in the event anyone notices or cares, the headline will be: “William F. Buckley’s Son Says He Is Pro-Obama.” I know, I know: It lacks the throw-weight of “Ron Reagan Jr. to Address Democratic Convention,” but it’ll have to do.

I am—drum roll, please, cue trumpets—making this announcement in the cyberpages of The Daily Beast (what joy to be writing for a publication so named!) rather than in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column. For a reason: My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker, recently wrote in National Review Online a column stating what John Cleese as Basil Fawlty would call “the bleeding obvious”: namely, that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one at that. She’s not exactly alone. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”

As for Kathleen, she has to date received 12,000 (quite literally) foam-at-the-mouth hate-emails. One correspondent, if that’s quite the right word, suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a Dumpster. There’s Socratic dialogue for you. Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” Well, the dear man did his best. At any rate, I don’t have the kidney at the moment for 12,000 emails saying how good it is he’s no longer alive to see his Judas of a son endorse for the presidency a covert Muslim who pals around with the Weather Underground. So, you’re reading it here first.

As to the particulars, assuming anyone gives a fig, here goes:

I have known John McCain personally since 1982. I wrote a well-received speech for him. Earlier this year, I wrote in The New York Times—I’m beginning to sound like Paul Krugman, who cannot begin a column without saying, “As I warned the world in my last column...”—a highly favorable Op-Ed about McCain, taking Rush Limbaugh and the others in the Right Wing Sanhedrin to task for going after McCain for being insufficiently conservative. I don’t—still—doubt that McCain’s instincts remain fundamentally conservative. But the problem is otherwise.

McCain rose to power on his personality and biography. He was authentic. He spoke truth to power. He told the media they were “jerks” (a sure sign of authenticity, to say nothing of good taste; we are jerks). He was real. He was unconventional. He embraced former anti-war leaders. He brought resolution to the awful missing-POW business. He brought about normalization with Vietnam—his former torturers! Yes, he erred in accepting plane rides and vacations from Charles Keating, but then, having been cleared on technicalities, groveled in apology before the nation. He told me across a lunch table, “The Keating business was much worse than my five and a half years in Hanoi, because I at least walked away from that with my honor.” Your heart went out to the guy. I thought at the time, God, this guy should be president someday.

A year ago, when everyone, including the man I’m about to endorse, was caterwauling to get out of Iraq on the next available flight, John McCain, practically alone, said no, no—bad move. Surge. It seemed a suicidal position to take, an act of political bravery of the kind you don’t see a whole lot of anymore.

But that was—sigh—then. John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

All this is genuinely saddening, and for the country is perhaps even tragic, for America ought, really, to be governed by men like John McCain—who have spent their entire lives in its service, even willing to give the last full measure of their devotion to it. If he goes out losing ugly, it will be beyond tragic, graffiti on a marble bust.

As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. As for his intellect, well, he’s a Harvard man, though that’s sure as heck no guarantee of anything, these days. Vietnam was brought to you by Harvard and (one or two) Yale men. As for our current adventure in Mesopotamia, consider this lustrous alumni roster. Bush 43: Yale. Rumsfeld: Princeton. Paul Bremer: Yale and Harvard. What do they all have in common? Andover! The best and the brightest.

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

Fringe Fest and Harvest Homecoming views from Friday.

We're trying to have things rolling by 12 Noon today. To be honest, I've not had time to organize the cheese tasting, so Sam -- if you're reading this -- it may be the two of us having a nice lunch.





Not to forget the other venues around downtown ...

Thanks again to all the visitors the past two nights, especially those who've said to me, "Finally, a reason to hang out at Harvest Homecoming." That means a lot to all of us at NABC.

"Sick Around the World" -- Wednesday, October 15 at the NA-FC Public Library.

Another funny Friday rolls around.

Cartoon from The Times of London, as reposted here.

HH, FF kick off.

Scenes from Fringe Fest on Thursday night:





It looked like a good crowd at Harvest Homecoming, too. Thanks to everyone who came out last evening. We're back in action today at 1:00 p.m.

A year later ...

It's Friday, Harvest Homecoming is in full swing, and if you've lived here any amount of time, you know what that means.

October 16, 2007: Harvest Homecoming's "swill walk" emblematic of clashing demographics.

... No single Harvest Homecoming “event” grandly compromises the committee’s goal of a family friendly festival like the Friday afternoon “beer walk,” which might be termed the “swill walk,” and so I think I will.

There has been a great deal of discussion in the community since we firrst considered the topic last year, and if advance notice is to be trusted, I believe there'll be tighter enforcement in all aspects in 2008.

Last year I wrote these words:

If NABC’s projected downtown brewing project comes to fruition, I hope to be able to illustrate that beer quality can be good, not bland, and that better beer can be consumed responsibly in a wholesome, entertaining and better atmosphere – which, after all, is the lesson any thinking human being takes away after sitting for a couple of hours drinking beer in a Bavarian beer garden, with playground equipment and young children generally in close proximity. Our future beer sales during Harvest Homecoming will be contained and controlled as far as humanly possible, and we’ll try to offer a higher common denominator. We may fail, but we’ll try.

By day's end, we'll know how well we passed the test.